


part of a love that you see

by foxinsocksinabox



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Gen, Natsume tells the truth, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 08:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10872840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxinsocksinabox/pseuds/foxinsocksinabox
Summary: "He’s been alone." Living an entire other life. Fighting monsters. "He’s been soalone, I thought when we took him in that we could h-help him but how can we- how do we help him with things we can’t evensee?"





	part of a love that you see

When Takashi finally goes to bed, red-eyed and exhausted, Touko makes herself a cup of tea. 

It’s usually the last thing she does at the end of the day. When the kitchen is clean, and the dinner things put away; when there’s nothing left to do but put her feet up, a cup of tea soothes the ache in her shoulders and the worries in her heart. Her hands have gone through the motions a hundred, a thousand times. 

But tonight, she cannot focus. Takashi’s revelations chase themselves round and round her head, and she forgets what she’s doing. A mug slips from her nerveless fingers. 

Shigeru, seated wanly at the table, looks up at the too-loud clink of porcelain. "Touko-san?"

"I’m fine." Her hands are shaking. She presses them into a fold of her apron, and tries to banish the matching quiver in her voice. "I’m f-fine."

A lump is lodged in her throat. Her eyes sting. Takashi’s pale, terrified face hovers in the forefront of her mind. Behind her, a chair scrapes against the floor.

"I’m not." Shigeru is a familiar, warm presence at her shoulder, comforting when he covers her hands with his. He uncurls her fingers, twines them into his. "When I think of how- all this time."

The countertop blurs, warps in front of her eyes. But there is a catch in Shigeru’s voice that Touko cannot help but respond to and, blindly, she turns to him. It’s only when his arms fold around her and she can bury her face in his shirt, that the tears begin to fall. 

"He’s been alone." Living an entire other life. Fighting monsters. "He’s been so _alone_ , I thought when we took him in that we could h-help him but how can we- how do we help him with things we can’t even _see?_ " 

Her chest feels like it’s going to crack open with the grief and terror she feels for this child, who didn’t come from her womb but is hers nonetheless. 

She is ashamed of the hitch in her voice. She is ashamed of how tight, how desperate her grip is on Shigeru’s shirt, but she needs to have that familiarity beneath her palms right now, when so much else has been turned on its head. She feels a bit better about it all when she feels that Shigeru is shaking, too. 

"I don’t know," he says, his voice hoarse. "I think- I think we just have to give him as much support as we can. We have to make him believe we will be here for him… no matter what. What do you think?"

Touko hitches a breath, and nods. The tears have subsided a little, but the grief is still lodged in her heart like a stone. "He’s ours." She says miserably instead, pulling back to draw a hand over her eyes. "He’s as much our son as- as if- he’s _ours_. Of course we will be here."

Shigeru presses a kiss to her forehead in tacit agreement.

Halfway up the staircase, Natsume Takashi folds himself onto a step and buries his face in his arms. A fat, ugly cat worms its way into his lap and lets the boy cry silently into its calico fur without comment, as he tries to reconcile the conversation he just overheard with the distrust of years. 

Natsume had been ready to leave. He doesn’t want to- he has been happier in the Fujiwara home than nearly anywhere else he can remember- but he had forced himself to be ready nonetheless. 

He does not know how to begin understanding that he is loved. 

But perhaps, with time, he will.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Someone's Waiting For You' from the Rescuers. 
> 
> Come talk to me on twitter!


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